Analysis of the basic mechanisms and the role of calcium 2

When an elderly individual who is not known to be asthmatic, but has high blood pressure suddenly finds it difficult to breathe down, has noisy breathing, coughs at times with blood stains in the sputum, appears to be choking and waves frantically for help, it will be unwise to think of any thing outside getting him to Hospital as quickly as possible.

First aid in any shape or form in this situation is often accompanied with disaster, because even when the patient gets to the Hospital alive, it takes the utmost best out of the Doctor on duty to very quickly analyze the situation, do the right and only the right thing and prevent death

In more than 3 quarters of the world, the life span of men and women is not more than 50 years, with women no longer living longer than men . After the age of 50 years, diseases of the cells in various forms declare themselves, no matter how powerfully we try to fight them. Diseases of the brain, kidneys, the Heart and it’s blood vessels, are usually the ones every one seems to hear and worry about. Unfortunately, except for those who take health matters for granted, and those who live carelessly and dangerously, patients with frightening clinical feature of heart failure such as pitting leg and thigh swelling, enlarged heart with beating sounds like the sounds made by the galloping feet of a horse, achieve full recovery, and often go back to physical activities they enjoy, but problems with the respiratory system are commonly ignored, by patient.

Diseases of the respiratory system are not that easy to diagnose , as they either arise on their own or may actually be secondary to diseases existing elsewhere in other parts of the body. Liver failure, kidney failure, brain failure, in fact, nearly any failing organ in the body is capable of releasing chemicals that will change the pattern and effectiveness of breathing, the sudden appearance of cheyne stokes breathing in a patient being managed for diabetic keto acidosis or hypertensive encephalopathy is a message that the status quo is about to get out of hand very quickly.

In terms of normal anatomy, the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system have lots in common, at the microscopic and macroscopic level. The relationship though more complicated is even more intimate at the level of cellular biochemistry. For instance, the bronchi are invested with secretory glands which in the healthy state are very helpful in trapping, liquefaction, transport etc, but in disease conditions become dangerously obstructive.

In terms of morphology, the airway consists of epithelia with different characteristics, secretory glands, connective tissue, cartilage a and muscles. The respiratory bronchioles have neither cartilahe nor mucus glands, but are the most muscular portion of the airway. receptors for irritants such as antigens, aerosols, dust pollen and smoke, and other rapidly adapting stretch receptors are located at or near openings in the respiratory channels just underneath the surface epithelia. The k( kulchitsky-like ) cells contain neurosecretory granules.

The nerve fibers that receive stimulation of the muscle of trachea and bronchi do so via the release of chemicals and vary from one individual to the other, but in one individual, they work together as a unit, hence in an attack of bronchial asthma, the patient strains sweats because whole units of muscles are contracting as a single unit.

Thus human asthma is characterized by change of smooth muscle characteristics in the direction of becoming single unit. As a result of all these, it is dangerous for any one to casually administer any drugs to a patient known to have asthma because the drug worked for another person known to be suffering from the condition. An elderly asthmatic who is given Aspirin by an unsuspecting patent medicine seller for his arthritis may drop dead after after ingesting the tablet of Aspirin.

Those who have been free of attack and those whose airways have been damaged by other agents such as cigarette smoke or even chronic chest infections can die from excessive reaction to drugs, which seem at first to be harmless

It has long been recognized that contraction of smooth muscle of the airway depends upon the level of free (i.e unbound) ions within the cytoplasm of the cell. The cell membrane creates an effective partition between the intracellular calcium ion of .05 and 0.35µ and the extra cellular fluid compartment with calcium ion concentration in the range of 1-2mm